


It's late on a summer night.

by lizzledpink



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Shenanigans, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzledpink/pseuds/lizzledpink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stargazing is pretty uncool. You don't care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's late on a summer night.

> Reader: Be the kid.

You are the kid.

Normally you’re described as the “cool kid,” but right now, the kid fits better. 

It’s late on a summer night. There were bugs, but they didn’t stick around long. For one, bugs have never really liked you. For another, you sprayed bug repellent all over your sword, and then swung it everywhere with a bit of a practice dance.

No pesky fireflies or mosquitoes dare bother you, now.

So, you lie back.

You used to live in a city. Now you live in the middle of a forest, and the sky is clear. The clearest. And, the brightest. You can look up, and see stars. You’ve never really done that before. You knew what the stars were, and you’d seen them a few times, but not this way. Not, you think, this beautifully.

> Dave: Realise how lame that sounded.

That’s a thought you’d normally cut away. It’s too uncool. But this is one of the moments when you don’t care.

They’re rare, these moments. You have to feel completely safe. To be honest, until recently, they almost hadn’t existed. Maybe once or twice in your life, with Bro, you’d let go. But usually you and he were so embroiled in being awesome that there was no opportunity to lie back. It was stay cool, or lose the battle. Nothing less, or you lose.

Out here, with only Rose to see… 

Actually, you’re okay.

And with that thought, you lower your shades, and lift your eyes to the sky.

> Dave: Let time pass.

You do.

You lose yourself in the patterns. You see the kind maiden, right across the sky, and the lion. But you’ve always seen them a bit differently -  the calm, but determined girl, always kind, but always willing to do what must be done, however grisly or dark. And the lion - well, she was more of a kitten. But her claws were no less sharp.

(You are unique. The other players didn’t meet all twelve, because some of the twelve died. But in your timelines, you met each of them at least once, because they all survived at least once. You haven’t told the others. There’s no need for _them_ to mourn more.)

After sitting outside for forty-one minutes and three seconds on your own, you hear Rose’s voice.

“Can I join you?”

You are silent.

“Dave?”

“If I don’t say anything, assume I don’t care,” you say, and hopefully she’s smart enough to figure out that it means yes.

She is.

Rose lies down on the grass beside you, carefully arranging her skirt to smudge it in the dirt as little as possible.

“Stargazing?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought so. I saw the book this morning.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it, Lalonde.”

She makes a humming noise that is frustratingly ambiguous. But however uncool you’re letting yourself be right now, you’re not so uncool as to lose your calm over some trifle like that. Really.

“That’s Kanaya, there,” Rose says softly. “Right above the horizon.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you?”

There’s just the tiniest hint of skepticism in her voice.

So you prove her wrong.

“See right over there? To the left? That really, really bright star?”

“Yes?”

“It’s called Antares, Rose. It’s so bright because it’s actually two stars, orbiting each other in a binary system. It’s located right in the middle of Scorpius. Funny, but I never thought Vriska’d look like a mop,” you observe dryly.

Rose laughs lightly. Good.

“And before you interrupted me, I was looking at Libra, right there.” You raise your hand, pointing it out. “It’s sideways, of course. The top of the scales are on the right, and the base is at the left. Only two of the stars in it have a proper name, but I can’t pronounce them. They’re way too long.”

“You’ve been studying,” Rose observes.

(And if she notices the slight hint of longing in your voice, then, just as you noticed it in hers, she doesn’t mention it.)

“I know the constellations, but I don’t know the individual stars. Impressive, Dave.”

“It’s something to do,” you tell her, and you wish that was less of a lie.

She falls silent.

“Yeah, I know,” you say. You don’t know what you know, but you know you know it. And it seems to pacify Rose, because she settles back into her spot. 

She sighs. “Beautiful.”

“Meh.”

“Jerk.”

“Witch.”

“That’s Jade, not me.”

“Seer’s not an insult; it just makes you sound like douche. Wait, actually -“

“Strider!”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever stop?”

“Why would I want to? I’m the baddest there is, Lalonde. It’s not my fault if you can’t keep up. I leave them all in the dust, I set the irons to rust, I put the ladies to lust and in that you can trust.”

“Strider.”

Rose means it this time.

“Yeah, okay.”

You spend the next sixty-one minutes and two seconds in pure silence.

> Dave: Fall asleep.

(Rose already has.)

:::

 _your dreams are illuminated in red and green and teal and blue, and that horrible purple…_

 _but a lighter purple is fighting with you,_

 _so mostly it’s okay._


End file.
